Land of Dust and Bones: The Secret Apocalypse Book 7 (6 page)

We follow the road for most of the day.
It’s not until we turn off the road, on to a non-existent dirt track, that fear
and paranoia begin to set in. To make matters worse, we are now walking into
the sun. The light is blinding. I can’t help but think this is the perfect time
and place for a trap, for an ambush.

Billy leads the way. Kenji is close behind,
his rifle armed and ready in case Billy tries anything.

Sarah and I are bringing up the rear.

“Do you think he’s lying?” I ask Sarah.

“About what?”

“About the oasis.”

“No. He’s telling the truth.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve gotten pretty good at reading people.
Don’t know why. I think it’s a survival thing. Something inherent to humans.
Something we evolved to become good at. You know, like, back in the Stone Age,
back when we lived in caves, we needed to know if people were lying to us, or
leading us away from the pack, leading us away to isolate and kill us.”

“Why the hell would you say that?” I ask.
“That’s kind of exactly what’s happening right now.”

“Nah. This is different. We were already
separated. We were already alone. Billy needs us and we need him. There’s water
close by.”

She had a good point. But I still feel
uneasy about the whole thing.

“I wish I could read people,” I say.

“You can. You just have to trust your gut,
your instincts. Your first impression of the situation. We all have that sense,
and it’s pretty good at telling us when we’re in danger.”

Big Ben once told me he used to get a cold
feeling in his gut when something bad was about to go down. And now that I
think back, maybe I do have this ability. It might not be as finely tuned as
I’d like it to be, but it was there. The worrying thing is, right now, my gut
is telling me something is wrong. I just can’t figure out what.

“Well, you know what my instincts are
telling me?” I say, voicing my concerns.

“What?”

“My instincts are telling me not to trust
this guy.”

“That’s good.”

“Huh?”

“You shouldn’t trust him. You don’t even
know him. Remember what I told you down in the Fortress. Trust no one.”

“We’re trusting you now.”

“That’s because you need me. Just like you
needed me down there. You didn’t have a choice then, and you don’t have a
choice now. But the door swings both ways. It’s give and take. It’s a mutual
benefit thing.”

“Mutual?”

“Yeah. You need me. I need you.”

“What do you need us for?”

“Protection,” she answers, motioning with
her head towards Kenji. “It’s a lot safer travelling with a soldier. And in a
group.”

Kim was right. She is using us for
protection to travel through the desert. Safety in numbers. What was her plan?
What would she do when we arrived at the town? Would she screw us over, would
she betray us like she did before?

“So, are you saying we shouldn’t trust
you?” I ask.

“No. I’m saying you have no choice.”

“Just like we don’t have a choice now with
this guy?”

“Exactly. We need water. And this guy knows
where to get it.”

“So we need to trust him?”

“No. Trust no one.”

“Wait. I’m getting confused. I thought you
said he was telling the truth?”

“He’s telling the truth about the water.”

“How do you know?”

“I could see it in his eyes. And the way he
described it. He’s been there. And he wants to get back. He
needs
to get back. He’s just as dead as
we are if we don’t get there.”

I think about this. And I guess Sarah is
right. Billy needs water.

After a while Sarah says, “But there’s
something… I don’t know what. That smile of his…”

“What about his smile?”

“He was so happy to see us.”

“Of course he was happy. Wouldn’t you be
happy to see other survivors?”

“It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“On what kind of person they’ve become. How
far gone are they?”

Once again, Sarah is right. And I know
this. I know it because I’ve experienced it all before. It’s no good surviving
physically, if you don’t survive mentally.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Sarah
continues. “It’s like he was waiting for us. Waiting for someone to come along.
So yeah, he might know where the water is, but that doesn’t mean you have to
trust him. You keep your weapon ready. You keep it close at all times. And you
keep your eyes open.”

She didn’t need to tell me twice.

“And I’m truly sorry about what happened
down in the Fortress,” she says quietly. “They were going to kill me. I mean,
they would’ve killed me, if I didn’t hand you over. That woman… and the others…
they’ve been through hell. And they have not survived. If we come across any
other people like that, we can’t afford to hesitate. We can’t afford to play
nice.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we shoot first, ask questions
later. Shoot to kill. If we can’t do that, if we can’t kill anyone who poses a
threat…” she shakes her head, trailing off.

“If we can’t kill them, then what?”

“Then we’re as good as dead.”

Sarah’s words of warning play over and over
in my mind. It was a truth that I already knew, even if I was having a hard
time accepting it. Because the truth was this… If we want any hope of
surviving, we need to become killers.

A few hours later we arrive at the oasis as the sun begins to set. And I
couldn’t believe it, Billy was telling the truth. Just like Sarah knew he was.
Just like we were all hoping he was.

The oasis is a slice of paradise in the
desert, in this apocalypse. There are palm trees for crying out loud.

Palm
trees…

There are birds.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a
bird, another living creature.

A fresh water stream runs north to south.

You would never find it, not unless you
knew where to look. The river has carved out a very narrow and relatively
shallow canyon through the desert. It was maybe a hundred feet down to the
canyon floor, down to the oasis. I could barely contain my excitement. I wanted
to jump down there, I wanted to go swimming.

“We better get down there quickly,” Billy
says. “Before it gets dark. Set up a camp fire.”

“A fire?” I ask. “Is that a good idea?”

“It gets mighty dark down there,” he says.
“And it’s starting to get cold at night.”

“But won’t it attract unwanted attention?”

“No. No one will see it. Not the dead. Not
the living. No one.”

Kenji looks out towards the horizon,
looking north and south, east and west. “This is a perfect spot for an ambush.
If we go down there, we’re putting ourselves in a kill box. If someone found
us, if they were hostile, they’d have the high ground. There’s not much cover.
We’d be pinned down. Trapped. We’d be target practice.”

Billy puts his arms out wide. “Take a look
around. We’re alone. There’s not anyone else out here. Sure there’s some living
dead folk walking through the desert, but they can’t shoot a rifle, can they?”

“No,” Kenji says. “But they could fall down
here, come after us.”

“If they fall down here, we’ll hear them.
We’ll hear them coming from a mile away. They’re always howling and screaming.
Trust me, this is a safer place than most.”

There’s that word again.

Trust.

“We don’t really have a choice,” I say to
Kenji, putting my own fears aside. Burying them deep down. “We need the water.
And we’ll know if the infected come anywhere near us. We’ll take turns keeping
watch.”

I think Kenji knew we were going down there
either way. And we were probably going to make a small fire. He just wanted to
make sure we didn’t get complacent, that even though we had found a goddamn
oasis in the desert, he wanted us to stay vigilant.

“Fine,” Kenji says, cutting Billy’s zip
ties so he can climb down. “We’ll make a small fire. But we bury it at the
slightest hint of danger.”

“Of course,” Billy says, waving us forward.
“Follow me. Watch your step.”

Billy tells us to be careful. It’s not the
easiest climb down. One wrong step and we could fall. Break a leg.

“A broken leg is a death sentence out
here,” he says. “Doesn’t matter if you’re the hunter or the hunted. You need to
be able to run.”

Billy shows us the way. At first it’s slow
going. But then he finds a hidden path. The path is basically a natural
staircase made out of the rock formations. It’s better than scaling down a
sheer cliff face, but it’s still a very steep descent.

We finally reach solid ground. And down in
the oasis, it’s even more breathtaking. It’s almost like we’ve stepped through
a portal into another dimension. We’ve left the desert behind. We are now in a
tropical paradise.

I can’t believe we have found water.

Actual water. Fresh. Flowing.

And with it, we’ve found a renewed sense of
hope.

We immediately rush to the water’s edge and
drink from our hands. We fill the water bottles and we keep drinking. I splash
Kenji and he smiles. It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile in forever.

Billy diligently fills his own water
bottles up. He then takes small and measured sips. He is in no rush.

“Should we go back?” I ask.

“Back where?” Sarah says.

“To get the others. Maybe bring them here.
Might be safer.”

Sarah thinks it over. “I don’t know if
that’s a good idea. It’s a day there, a day back. Two days. That’s a lot of
time.”

The smile disappears from Kenji’s face.
“And I’m not sure… I mean, Jack won’t…”

“Jack won’t what?” I ask. “Say it. Just say
it.”

“He won’t make it. He can barely walk. He’s
lost too much blood.”

“We’re better off pushing through,” Sarah
says. “And once we get to the town, we can get a car. Trust me, this is the
best way.”

“I know back tracking is bad,” I say. “But
I think we should at least consider it.”

Kenji splashes some water on his face. “We
should get some rest first. Get some sleep. We shouldn’t be making these kinds
of decisions when we’re this exhausted.”

“Sleep?” I ask. “We don’t have time to
sleep.”

“Trust me,
Bec
.
We need sleep. Sarah was right before. We’re slipping. We need to recharge our
batteries.” He looks to the sky. “We should try and get a few hours each. We
can set off again, during the night.”

Billy shakes his head. “You’ll have to wait
for dawn. It’ll be impossible to climb out of here in the dark.”

“Great,” I say. “So now that we’re down
here, we have to waste a whole night? A whole night that we could’ve been
walking.”

“We’ve got water now,” Kenji says. “We set
off first thing tomorrow morning. We rest during the middle of the day, and
then we keep going. We’ll make the time up. Trust me. Rest and rehydrating will
do us the world of good.”

Billy smiles and nods. He is so happy.
“I’ll get the fire started.”

We set up our little camp away from the water, under one of the palm trees.
Kenji says it will give us concealment in case of the unlikely event that some
not very nice people come across this oasis.

Billy wastes no time in making the
campfire. He digs a shallow hole and fills it with kindling and branches from
the palm trees and the river gums that line the narrow creek. He takes out a
pack of matches from his back pocket. The branches are dry and the kindling is
bone dry and the fire takes hold in a matter of seconds.

We sit in silence for a while. Mesmerized
by the flames. And as we sit in silence, I can’t help but think about the
others. What the hell were they doing right now? There’s no way they’re sitting
around a camp fire. I picture them, huddled together in the wreckage of that
helicopter, surrounded by five dead bodies. There’s no way they could afford to
light a fire. It would be too dangerous for them. And there’s no way they
could, even if they wanted to.

I wish I could call them up. I wish I could
send them a message. I want to let them know that we are doing our best. That
we will be back for them. I want to tell them to stay strong.

For them, the waiting, the not knowing when
we’d be back, it has to be a kind of psychological torture. It would be enough
to drive a person insane. I know it would drive me crazy. But then again, is
walking off into the desert any better? Maybe. I don’t know. I think I’d prefer
action over inaction. Even if the action in question was something incredibly
dangerous and borderline stupid, like walking off into the Australian desert. I
wonder how we’d be doing if we hadn’t found Billy, if he hadn’t led us to this
oasis.

How much worse off would we be?

How dehydrated would we be?

Sarah told me we had no choice but to
follow Billy. But that doesn’t mean we need to trust him.

We shouldn’t trust him.

Trust
no one.

But I decide to ask him some questions
anyway. I decide to talk to him. We need to know who this guy is.

We need to know what he’s been doing.

And we need to know how he’s been
surviving.

“So, Billy,” I say casually, friendly.
“Tell us about yourself.”

He takes a swig of water as he pokes the
fire with a stick, stoking the flames. “There’s not much to tell. We… me and my
brothers…we decided, when the Oz virus first hit, we decided to get out and get
as far away from everyone. When the government started lying to people… that
was the clincher. I mean, the government always lies, always stretches the
truth. But this was different.”

“How’d you know the government was lying?”
Sarah asks.

“You only had to look out the window. You
could see it on the streets. We lived in a small town. Probably wasn’t as bad
as the rest of the place, as the bigger cities. But it was bad enough. And then
you got the government telling us to stay indoors, telling us not to panic. But
it was the perfect time…”

He trails off.

“Perfect time for what?” I ask.

“For panic. For confusion. It gives the
world an energy. Sometimes, panic and fear is a gift.”

He breaks a small twig between his thumb
and forefinger. He throws it on the fire.

“Yeah,” he continues. “It’s a gift all
right. And if ever there was a time for panic, those first couple of weeks.
Yeah. Perfect. That was the time for panic. It was the time for fear. And it
was the time to run.”

“So you came out here?” Kenji asks.

“Yes, sir. We used to come out here all the
time. Just to get away from everyone. To get away from prying eyes. You come
out here for the isolation. For the silence. You’re so alone out here. It’s so…
it’s
so freedom, you know? A man has to have his
freedom. A man has to have the time, has to take the time to be himself. He has
to take that mask off he wears all day.”

“Mask?”

“My brother says we wear masks. Different
masks. We wear them in public. We hardly ever show our true selves to anyone.
We’re always so guarded. You have to be. But out here… out here you can be
anyone. You can take your mask off. You can be anything. Do anything. You can
even be yourself.”

I guess he had a point. And he’s right
about the freedom.

“So what did you do for work before the
world ended?” I ask.

He takes a measured sip of water. “Worked
in an abattoir outside of
Kalgoorlie
. It was actually
a ways outside. But that’s necessity. You don’t want to put a slaughterhouse
next to anything, least of all people.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the stench. The smell. People can’t
handle the smell. Apparently it’s god awful. The smell of death.” He shrugs his
shoulders. “I guess I been working there so long, I just
kinda
got used to it. I don’t even notice the smell anymore.”

“That’s got to be a hard job,” I say.
“Killing cattle and cows and animals every day. Doesn’t that get kind of
depressing after a while?”

“Nah. Well, you see, we didn’t actually
kill the animals. We actually never even see the animals.”

“What do you mean?”

“People, the workers, we go in one end of
the slaughterhouse, the animals go in the other end.
Us
workers, the carvers, the butchers, we never even see them.”

“So how are the animals killed?”

“It varies from place to place. But in our
house, there’s just one man. They call him, ‘The Hammer’. We don’t see him
either. Not during work hours.”

“You don’t see him? So like, he’s isolated?
Or hidden away?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. I think it’s
a tradition, you know. It goes back. A long way. Back when people were more
superstitious. Back when people were scared of every little thing.”

“Scared?”

“Yeah. They used to believe that the man,
the one doing all the killing, that he was cursed. That he was polluted or
tainted by the killing, by death. That’s why he would be locked away. That’s
why he was hidden. All the traditions are passed on. Usually from father to
son. And if you’re not part of the family, you
gotta
be invited into the circle. You
gotta
be trusted. But
that’s a rare case. It’s usually passed on down through the family.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Wow. I had no idea it
was so…” I want to say weird, but I don’t want to offend Billy. So instead I
say, “That’s so interesting. I didn’t realize it was such a sacred and strict
tradition.”

“Yeah, well, at least that’s how things
were in our house. I was being trained up,” he says with pride in his voice. “I
was being groomed. But I never got the chance.”

“Why not?”

“The world ended.”

“Oh, right.”

“I reckon I’d be a good Hammer,” he
continues. “The trick is to not hesitate. You
gotta
hit through the head. Hit through the brain. And as big as those beasts are,
they go down. If you do it right. My brother, they say he’s the best there ever
was, or ever will be. He can put a bull down with one knock, one hit. Every
time. Sometimes, for most people, it takes a few tries. But my brother, he gets
the work done easy. One hit. He’s the best. He’s the reason I was invited into
the circle. But yeah, the Hammers, they’re the only ones who deal with the
animals. The rest of us, we deal with meat.”

“So your whole family worked there?” Kenji
says.

“Yes, sir. Family tradition. Plus they
gotta
hire you if you’re family. It was a rule, a law the
union fought for, way back during the industrial revolution or something. It
was good pay. Plus my other brother, my eldest brother worked there, until he
left to become a police officer. He basically got me the job. He’s always
looking out for me.”

“How many brothers do you have?” Sarah
asks.

“Two older brothers. I’m the baby.”

“Wait,” I say. “Why do they call them
Hammers?”

“Because that’s what they use to kill the
animals with,” Billy answers. “A big
ol
’
sledgehammer.”

“You’re kidding? I thought they would use a
machine, or a gun, or something.”

“Nope. Not out here. Most places the world
over use an air gun with a retractable metal bullet. Some places have these
huge automated killing floors. They force the cattle in. They trick them, you
see. They have this trough. And the cattle are used to feeding from a trough.
So… so they walk up to the trough…”

Billy is now getting excited. He is
smiling. Talking with his hands. “But it’s not a feeding trough. It’s just a
catchment thing, for their heads. They lock their heads into place and then
they drop this massive guillotine. Severs the neck. Kills them instantly. You
can kill about a hundred head of cattle in one go.”

I couldn’t help but admire how efficient
that was. Terrifying. But efficient.

“It’s amazing,” Billy says. “The cattle,
they just walk up to the guillotine. They don’t know. They don’t care.”

“So why did your place use the old method?”
I ask. “A sledgehammer seems like it would be slow and kind of cruel. I mean,
if you don’t kill the cow on the first go, then won’t it be suffering? Won’t it
be in pain?”

“Not for long it won’t. But like I said.
The Hammers, most of them, they were good. They could usually do the job in one
go. Sometimes two or three. You
ain’t
much of a
Hammer if you take more than two goes at it. But it’s quick. It’s bang! You
know? Bang! And they’re dead.”

“Billy,” Kenji says quietly. “Keep your
voice down.”

“Sorry. I’m just saying, it’s quick. No
pain. No suffering. No nothing. Just a lot of meat. And a lot of happy
customers. And besides, the air gun, the guillotine and the other killing
machines, they’re machines, you know? They’re putting people out of a job. The
Hammers, that’s the better way. It’s better.”

I guess he had a good point.

“My brother,” Billy says. “The one who
became a cop. He always says there’s two kinds of people in this world… Hammers
and nails.”

Billy laughs and Kenji tells him to keep
his voice down again.

As gross as this conversation was, it was
making me hungry. I mean, I like meat. I like cheeseburgers and steaks and
ribs. And now I can hardly think straight because I’m so goddamn hungry. The
hunger pains kick in and the pain is so excruciating, I’m convinced my stomach
acid is actually burning a hole right through my insides.

“Can we talk about something else?” I ask.

“Sorry,” Billy says. “Most people can’t
handle it. Even though they eat meat every day. They can’t handle the killing.”

“Well, yeah. But also, thinking about meat
is making me super hungry.”

Billy laughs again. He doesn’t seem to care
about how much noise he is making. I can tell Kenji is getting worried.

“So did you make it out here with anyone
else?” I ask, unable to remember if his brothers made it out alive.

He nods his head slowly. “Yeah. Made it out
here with my family. My brothers. My granddaddy.” He takes a deep breath. “My
granddad, he’s not doing so
good
. He’s old. Sometimes
I think maybe we should’ve left him behind. It’s hard on him out here. But we
just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave him. Family has to stick together. No
matter what.”

“Where are they now?” Kenji asks. “Where
have you guys been living? You don’t have to tell me the exact coordinates or
anything like that. I just mean like, have you guys found a farm or a town or
something?”

Kenji asked this question with hope in his
voice. He is desperate to know if there are any places left in the world where
we can make a home. A place where we can survive.

Billy lowers his head. “Yeah, we’ve got a
place. But I… I’m not supposed to tell outsiders about it. My brother says it’s
too dangerous. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “We totally
understand.”

“So what were you doing out here by
yourself?” Sarah asks. “Where are your brothers?”

“I was looking for supplies,” he answers
quickly. “I wandered off. Went too far. We saw the road train a couple of
months back. We thought it might still have supplies. It was further than I
thought.”

“Do your brothers know where you are?”

“Not exactly. I told them I was going out.
Told them I was looking for… supplies. They trust me. They know I can look
after myself.”

“You’re not even armed,” I say.

Billy shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t really
like guns. Too loud. Sometimes… it’s better to be quiet.”

“Well, we’re glad we found you,” Kenji
says. “And we’re extremely grateful for this.”

Billy informs us that his camp is about a
three day walk from here. And now that he has fresh water, he could make it
back easily.

Kenji tells us to get some sleep. Because
as soon as the sky began to gray, at the first hint of sunrise, we’d be making
our move. Kenji’s eyes are almost closed as he is telling us to sleep. I let
him know that I’ll take first watch. He begins to argue, but he doesn’t put up
much of a fight.